Psychology Reflection Paper

One of the occupations that I have been considering is research psychology. That being so, this chapter was interesting to me because I didn’t know how complex research actually was. In the beginning of the chapter the research process is simplified into a series of steps that I was familiar with but it also included an in depth definition of these steps and how they all affect each other. The definitions for theory, hypotheses and prediction became less general for me and more scientific. I was able to understand how they directly affect each other. A prediction doesn’t exist without a hypotheses and a hypotheses doesn’t exist without a theory. The beginning of the chapter introduced me to the many forms of data collection. I was also introduced

This makes sense because if the results are consistent in different situations then we can trust that those results will be effective in employing a way to reduce prejudice. I also learned that the end goal of research was to have a verified theory and draw application from it that could be applied to real life. I didn 't know that applications from research could be applied in social settings. As I said before, research is much more complex than the explanation that was given to me in high school. Within these different categories there are even smaller categories that assist the processes as a whole. For example, data collection. There are four ways of collecting data that were discussed in chapter two. They are correlational, experimental, ethnographic and content analysis research. Correlational research includes survey research, probability sampling, convenience

The more controlled the research strategies are the less natural they are and the more questionable if it’s conclusions real life applications will be effective. For example, experimental research is extremely controlled and loses it’s naturalism. Experimental research being so heavily controlled allows its researchers to make sure they hit every criteria that needs to be met in order to find causation. Experimental research uses laboratory experiments and field experiments. These are all expensive and highly artificial. Unlike experimental research, ethnographic and content analysis value naturalism over control. These research strategies observe participants and actually ask them questions. However, it is difficult to avoid social desirability response bias. Participants would be aware of bias and how it makes them look and respond accordingly to the socially “preferable” answer. I believe even with the different measures of prejudice it’s nearly impossible to observe how exactly prejudiced someone is. It’s simply too abstract there isn’t an exact number for how prejudiced someone is as a whole. I still have hope that we can come close to finding way to reduce prejudice but because we cannot read minds there will always be a limit to how much prejudice we can